Filthy, Rich and Catflap - YouTube Filthy, Rich and Catflap 3,122 views Last updated on Oct 7, 2012 Filthy Rich & Catflap was a BBC sitcom produced in 1986 and broadcast early the next year. The series featured former The Young Ones stars Nigel Planer, Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmondson as its three title characters respectively. It was written by Ben Elton (with additional material credited to Mayall), and produced and directed by Paul Jackson (who also directed The Young Ones), with film sequences directed by Ed Bye. The show's music was written by Peter Brewis. One series of six half-hour episodes was produced (although the notion of a second series is played upon in the final episode, and the continuity announcer on the last instalment says "...and Filthy Rich and Catflap will return next year"). The series enjoyed a resurgence of interest in 2004 when it was officially released on DVD by independent DVD production company Playback. The VHS and DVD versions were cut for musical rights.

These included Richie singing "Where Is Love", "Morning Has Broken" and "Consider Yourself"; and Eddie singing "Roxanne", "You've Got To Pick a Pocket or Two" and "Message in a Bottle". Characters Ralph Filthy (Planer): Richie's showbiz agent. He is sleazy and sickly and has, to quote writer Elton, "the morals of a dog caught short on a croquet lawn" (a line he would re-use as the tag line for his 1989 novel Stark). Quote: "Boys. It's not often I get excited but right now I feel like I've been locked in an off-licence". His speech is peppered with Polari and he refers to Richie as "Daughter"; his lapel also features a blue rose, a symbol of a quest for the impossible. Gertrude "Richie" Rich (Mayall): a perennially "resting" (out of work) actor whose most prominent work to date includes links on TVS. Despite this, he considers himself a "veritable superstar" and has paranoid delusions about everyone he meets wanting to either cash in on his fame or assassinate him. Hence, he hires a bodyguard.

Edward Didgeridoo Catflap (Edmondson): Richie's faithless minder; permanently drunk, disloyal, and violent. Occasionally, Catflap holds up the pretence of being the best friend of Richie, although this is usually for personal gain (Edmondson's character in Bottom, Eddie Hitler, is similar, but not identical). Cast Filthy, Rich and Catflap | The List Filthy, Rich and Catflap A nostalgic blast of wayward genius from Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmondson Source: The List comments ‘I’m sorry, but did I just detect an effort at humour brilliantly disguised as offensive, mindless drivel?’ Within three minutes of Filthy, Rich & Catflap ’s opening episode in 1987, Rik Mayall expressed the standard which was set for the duration of his working career alongside Adrian Edmondson from the Dangerous Brothers to Guest House Paradiso . If their epoch-defining cultish hit The Young Ones proved that there could be more to the British sitcom than some less than crazy doings of the landed gentry, dodgy landlords and weak politicians, its follow-up showed that sometimes crude old-fashioned daftness could still hit the spot.

Subtlety was a complete stranger to the Ben Elton -scripted affair, which played perfectly to the puerile strengths of Mayall (as the permanently unemployed luvvie, Richie Rich), Adrian Edmondson (his constantly beered-up minder, Eddie Catflap) and Nigel Planer (the droll agent and sometime pornographer). Within seven minutes, the series’ first brutal slaying had taken place with Arthur Smith ’s milkman bludgeoned to death after being falsely accused of working undercover as a tabloid journalist. The final episode featured a public execution going awry. Now 25 years on, it seems fairly unlikely that a brand new generation will be turned on to such immature anarchy, but for those who can’t get enough of endless cartoon violence and a stream of knob gags, and whose VHS-recorded episodes of Filthy, Rich & Catflap have long since been lost or destroyed, this will be a nostalgic blast of wayward genius. Filthy Rich & Catflap characters - British Comedy Guide Ralph Filthy AKA: Filthy Ralph. Theatrical agent.

Played by: Nigel Planer Ralph Filthy is Richie's agent, who profiteers from a string of seedy businesses and dealings, often using his showbiz operations as a cover. He's also an alcoholic and a hypochondriac, often using his illnesses to evade his obligations. Ralph does very little to help Richie and can often be seen visiting his client's house and helping himself to alcohol. While he seems to almost like Richie and Eddie, it is clear at times that they would each trample over the other quickly to achieve their own ends. Richie Rich AKA: Richard 'Richie' Rich. Comedian. Played by: Rik Mayall Richie Rich is a minor celebrity who has never really hit the hights of stardom. He has worked on and off as a comedian, game show host, celebrity game show contestant and pantomime star, but is desperately behind the times and certainly not the household name that he would like to be. Part of this is due to the fact that his focus is on telling people how good he is, rather than actually working on his talent. In spite of this he behaves like a bona-fide star and expects that everyone else will treat him as such.

He is tempremental, childish, demanding and cowardly. Richie has no discernible healthy relationships. Women tend to find him repellent; it is obvious that his family wants little to do with him; and the showbiz community seem embarrassed by him. Ralph Filthy, his agent, does not seem to mind him, but uses him mostly for his own gain. Meanwhile Eddie Catflap, his minder, has a violent love/hate relationship with Richie. Eddie Catflap AKA: Edward 'Eddie' Catflap. Bodyguard. Played by: Adrian Edmondson Eddie Catflap is Richie Rich's bodyguard - which is a rather redundant job most of the time as few people know or care who Richie is. Eddie is base, violent and alcoholic and has a sibling relationship with his employer. He constantly shows disrespect to Richie, even violence, but will gladly help in Richie's schemes and get his boss out of trouble. By his own admission, Eddie's stupid and rarely the brains of the outfit, but often operates with a clarity and logic that evades Richie - trumping his boss and others around him.

Share this page Filthy Rich & Catflap | Noise to Signal Filthy Rich & Catflap Fourth wall? What fourth wall? Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmondson are somewhat unique in British comedy for having 'grown up' (if that's the correct phrase) through their comedy. They started as The Dangerous Brothers , using the persona of two violent teenagers, although the violence was only directed against each other, went through a fictional studenthood as Rik and Vyvyan Bastard, and ended up as middle-aged Richie Rich and Eddie Hitler, perhaps their longest-running characters. But there is a little-known phase that has dropped from many people's memories, and often dismissed as a lower-rent Young Ones : Filthy Rich & Catflap , in which Richie Rich and Eddie Catflap try and earn a living as an actor and bodyguard respectively. Richie is twenty-something, a virgin, and an embarrassment to anyone working with him. Eddie is his permanently drunk bodyguard, who has little regard for Richie's safety, and even less for his own. They are not at all helped by Richie's agent, Ralph Filthy, perhaps the finest comic performance Nigel Planer has ever given.

Ralph is Richie's agent, a manipulating, lying, drunk hypochondriac. Mark Lewisohn in The Radio Times Guide to TV Comedy has the ultimate description of Filthy in "..a feckless nonentity of colossal uselessness..." who sold off his granny a long time ago, and who heads a string of disreputable businesses. Not that he'd admit it, though: "Honestly, just because I run a string of discount brothels, everyone seems to think I'm a dirty old man!" . When Eddie challenges him on this, he replies: "Eddie, my leisure establishments are totally allowable. And anyway, I get the kids off Youth Training Schemes . (addresses audience) The Iron Lady looks after small businessman like me." . This sets the tone for the whole series, which is full of jibes at the contemporary government, often addressed to the audience. There is no fourth wall, continuing the trend from The Young Ones , which often featured the characters addressing the audience. Although there's lots of comedy violence, especially in the first episode, this isn't quite slapstick. Characters get hurt, and even killed, with the body count in the first episode reaching five. But then, they were mostly only milkmen.

The violence in the series never reaches the heady heights of episode one again, but you can't really top a plot line which concludes with the police dumping the bodies of convicts in a river. Naturally this is excused by Rik and Ade, out of character, as lazy, and Rik ends by saying "...next time you get beaten up, try calling an alternative comedian!" . Interestingly, this slapstick was carried over to Bottom, but never with quite the same malevolence. For me, the peak of the series is in episode two, where Richie is booked to appear on Ooer, Sounds a Bit Rude , an obvious parody of Blankety Blank parody in the 2003 Comic Relief, written by Peter Serafinowicz and Robert Popper). There are some fantastic performances here, especially from Chris Barrie, who plays the apoplectic director, constantly shouting at Harry Enfield's floor manager and his cameramen. At Dimension Jump 2004 , Chris Barrie told me that the director he based his performance on was Peter Harris , director of Spitting Image , amongst other fine productions.

According to Chris, Mr Harris insisted on a vase of lupins with every job, and I can believe him. In this episode, Richie tries desperately to be a celebrity, annoying everyone with his anecdotes: "My Dick was fantastic!" , and driving the director towards an heart attack with his interruptions. Notable quotes from the director here (although, in my opinion, they're ALL notable) are "Julian! We're two minutes to air! Who's the ugly bastard doing all the chatting?", "Sit on him! Sack him, sack his people, bankrupt his company!","Close up on the pleb...I said close up on the pleb, not right up her nose, for god's sake! Ex-camera five, good luck at the job centre, my darling!" . Gareth Hale gives perhaps the finest performance of his career as 'Ivor Whopper', the host, saying to his audience: "Thank you, thank you, for giving me 'the clap'" .

Richie's answer to the question "I never impress the girls because I've only got a small...." , "PENIS!" , is a nice subversion of the humour, and this is carried on to its extreme, calumniating in a fight between the guests for the camera. Molly Slocombe , who saved the show from Richie by making pussy jokes, tells the audience: "When I say me pussy, I really mean me _!" , before getting shoved out of view, and the comedy gay states: "I'm homosexual! Isn't it hilarious?!" . But this isn't the end of the fun. Yet another of the reasons why episode two is so good is a rather impressive turn by none other than The Nolans , all of whom Richie fancies like mad. They find him in their dressing room after the recording, dressed in one of their costumes, and blackmail him by taking a picture and telling him they will give it back if they get a thousand pounds from him.

At first, Richie and Eddie try and get the proceeds of Filthy's sale of one of his cleaner's paintings by killing him, but this simply results in a Benny Hill-esque chase around the flat, and the money being flushed down the toilet by mistake. Filthy is philosophical about it, despite planning to gamble with the money: "Hello, Nasty John's Cock and Dog fights?...Have you got any children fighting today?" . The way Richie finally gets this money is the final reason why this is my favourite episode: Fry and Laurie play an art dealer and his associate, who buy all of Eddie's pathetic attempts at art, and display it, winning plaudits from art critics. They pay off the Nolans with the result of the dealer's experiment in just how sheep-like art buyers are, and the Nolans perform I'm in the Mood for Dancing in the flat at the end of the episode. The third episode demonstrates the closeness of Richie and Eddie's relationship. They hate each other, yet depend on each other to bring some order to their lives. Their taunting of each other is very sibling-like, echoing the Dangerous Brothers and Rik and Vyvyan.

Richie's dinner party, to which top celebs like Jimmy Tarbuck are invited, is a perfect opportunity for them to slag off the 'old school' comics, who were regularly presenting game shows at the time. However, the real innovation comes with Richie and Eddie paying their local newsagent a visit. They walk through a door to the next set, with the camera following them from the side. Eddie comments that the newsagent has got a lot closer ever since they moved studios, and Richie tells him off, telling him that he's 'spoiling the magic' for the audience. As part two of their desired magazine is free with part one, they simply steal part two and leave. When the woman behind the counter threatens to phone the police, Richie reminds her that it's the end of her scene and taunts her. Richie and Eddie's bizarre lifestyle is revealed in an exchange where Richie taunts Eddie for not going out with girls. Eddie retorts that he went out with one last week, and Richie replies "Eddie, that was your mother!" . Eddie exclaims "I still got a snog! Well, it was more of a fight, really." .

Their immersion in light entertainment hell is reinforced in the fifth episode, when Eddie is driven mad by Richie's burbling about Tom O'Connor , leading to Eddie's smashing of the television after Richie suggests watching Name That Tune on the video. More of Ralph Filthy's dubious character is revealed by his entrance in the fifth episode, with him declaring that "The front door was closed, so I picked the lock." . He then proceeds to let the bathroom out to a young couple with a baby, and calms Richie and Eddie's objections with the news that a couple of students are living in their bin. Much is made of Filthy's dodgy business interests and his exploitative nature, all of which is justified, but conversely, Richie admits in the third episode that he doesn't pay him, and Filthy not only manages to get Richie an appearance in Ooer, Sounds a Bit Rude , but also gets him a spot on TV-AM . This is another highlight of the series, with a fantastic performance from Anne Diamond . The prospect of getting up at 4.30am forces Richie and Eddie to try and spend a quiet night in.

As the TV is broken, they attempt a game of Trivial Pursuit , at which Eddie catches Richie cheating in the mirror. This prompts a melancholic comment from Eddie: "The pathetic sight of the man who once did the continuity links on TVS reduced to grubby cheating to get the better of his half-drunk minder. This, if you don't mind me saying so, is the state of Thatcher's Britain." . Richie's ranting that Eddie's questions are too easy also provokes Eddie to turn to the audience and explain that the producer assures him that this is what it's like playing Trivial Pursuit , and therefore this is a brilliantly observed gag. Naturally, they end up in "...Lager Frenzy!" , subsidised by Richie's impending TV spot, and turn up to the studios late, having gone on a club crawl via Liverpool and Southampton. Filthy is annoyed at their appearance, having hoped that his instructions would produce the opposite effect, as he is trying to get on air to plug his smutty book. As Anne Diamond tells him, his plan has failed. Filthy says: "You really are as sweet and innocent as you appear on the television, aren't you?" .

She replies: "Yes, I am. I'm lovely." , playing it perfectly. Richie is incapable of reviewing the newspapers, and ends up reading out gossip about himself. As the police arrive, Richie and Eddie both point their bottoms at the camera, and the caption 'continued next week' appears. The series is firmly entrenched in the tacky end of British showbusiness, something which perhaps made it more of a cult than its predecessor. While almost anyone could find jokes about students amusing (although The Young Ones was always much more than that), it takes a particular type of person to appreciate jokes about Jimmy Tarbuck, Bruce Forsyth , Kenny Lynch and Freddie Starr . In fact, Spitting Image were doing the same sort of thing at the same time in their Komic Book, and of course that was aimed at the same sort of audience: politically aware types who didn't have that much time for the sort of comedians dominating mainstream comedy at the time. Although the series could be accused of self-indulgence, this is almost missing the point. It was written for the enjoyment of the writers, the cast, and whoever was willing to go along with them, giving the show a rather intimate and informal feel.

The overall feeling of being party to a big in-joke is heightened by the abbreviations of unlikely words: 'trub' for trouble, or 'priz' for prison. My personal favourite is the phrase used by Eddie after he's discovered that Richie has accidentally killed the milkman: "Quick, let's get the bod in the cub before it starts to whiff!" . Filthy Rich & Catflap is unusual in that the 'fourth wall' between the cast and the audience doesn't exist. The cast often make fun of the script to the audience, whilst still in character, something that was tentatively explored in The Young Ones , but which is an integral part of Filthy Rich & Catflap . Perhaps the best indicator that the show exists inside its own twisted universe turns up in the last episode. The series concludes with Richie and Eddie in court, where, despite Richie protesting that he's pregnant and perhaps because of Eddie's constant grinning to camera, they are sentenced to be shot. The judge is played by John Wells , who gives an ever-reliable performance.

Fortunately, Filthy intervenes, meaning the sentences are commuted to conditional discharges (the condition being that Richie and Eddie should find jobs outside showbusiness), but manages to get himself sentenced to hang under the Criminal Evidence Anti-Terrorist the Police can do What they Bloody Well Like Bill. Little bit of politics there, ladies and gentlemen! The world of Richie and Eddie continues with Richie comparing their situation with that of Oliver Twist , setting up a very laboured, but very funny joke: "Why, doctor...know ye not these two little urchins Eddie and Richie? Study on the portrait of my dead daughter: surely you will vouchsafe that their faces are just like Fanny's?" . Very Carry On , with half the joy in the preparation. Still in his fantasy, Richie tries a pathetic attempt at practising pick pocketing on Eddie, noisily singing 'Consider Yourself' all the while. Eventually, they decide to visit Filthy, who greets them with "This morning, I coughed so hard, I blew my kidney out my backside." .

He's on his usual form, if a little subdued, and offers the advice that they should become journalists, as they are talentless and revolting enough, in return for them bringing him a short piece of 1 inch steel piping. This is a nice excuse for a Murdoch parody; 'Dingo Wucker' played by John Bird in his usual manner. Thankfully, although he's a little jumpy at the mention of unions, he is impressed by Richie and Eddie's forged references, and instructs them to smear Sir Bob Geldof , lest Sir Bob should reveal that Third World debt is actually caused by the West. This was a full 13 years before Jubilee 2000 , politics fans. Midge Ure is the pop star Richie and Eddie are told to investigate, and he, like all the guests in the show, puts on a commendable performance. Richie and Eddie's threat of blackmail with sleazy photos of him in 'The Daily Bastard' falls flat when he gives his blessing, favouring the publicity. The absence of a fourth wall is apparent when Richie shouts at the audience to stop cheering Midge, and at Filthy's execution, which Richie and Eddie find themselves covering after their failed blackmail attempt.

Eddie turns to the audience and says: "The Government would like us to warn children that hanging is extremely dangerous, even though more than half of them want to bring it back." . His warning is superfluous, however, as Filthy has put the pipe they brought him in his windpipe, because he's "...got to be in the next series." . When Eddie points out that the pipe is still in his cell, Filthy explains that his safety harness must have saved him, putting it clearly in shot. One of the most refreshing things about the series is the writers assumed that the audience had the same level of intelligence as themselves, and although this was a clear foundation of 'alternative humour', it is rarely shown in sitcom to this extent. Back in the flat, it is decided that they must smear everyone else in showbusiness in order for Richie to be famous, and take the opportunity to recreate the famous Benny Hill chase around the flat, because, as they say, he is 'the governor', with 150 years in show biz, and still telling the same joke.

They take their smears to Dingo Wucker, and before we know it, we see Richie sitting in front of the television, watching an evening of him on BBC 1. Richie shows off to the audience, while Eddie decides to destroy the set and any remnants of a possible division between the cast and the audience. Filthy, on the other hand, buggers off to Rio. Before the TV is destroyed, Richie turns to the camera and says with a beaming smile: "Made it!" . Although a second series would probably have been made if the programme had been successful, is it possible that those involved knew that was all they were going to get? After all, where could they go from there? Lewisohn doesn't think this is a classic, but rather "... a commendable and risky attempt at generating something a little different." . I presume he was talking in terms of the mainstream, as this was certainly not a programme that most people would talk about in the workplace, but this series wasn't written for that sort of person anyway. It was a series written by and for comedy obsessives, self-reverential, insular, and bloody marvellous for the lucky souls that understood where those involved were coming from.

In this, it could be said that the existence of this series represented the calumniation of what many in the 'alternative comedy' movement wanted to achieve: the killing off of the domination of 'old school' entertainment, as it opened up the hypocrisy and falseness of it for all those who wanted to see it. As this was such a revolutionary piece of television, it is remarkable that for many people this is a chapter of 'alternative comedy' that doesn't exist. Watch Filthy, Rich and Catflap Free Online Watch Filthy, Rich and Catflap Free Online Release Date: Categories: TV Comedy Sitcom The series featured former The Young Ones stars Nigel Planer, Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmondson as its three title characters respectively. It was written by Ben Elton with additional material credited to Mayall. One series of six half-hour episodes was pro... Show More The series featured former The Young Ones stars Nigel Planer, Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmondson as its three title characters respectively. It was written by Ben Elton with additional material credited to Mayall.

One series of six half-hour episodes was produced (although the notion of a second series is played upon in the final episode, and the continuity announcer on the last installment says "...and Filthy, Rich and Catflap will return next year." They didn't.) Show Less Review: Filthy, Rich & Catflap: 25th Anniversary Edition (UK - DVD R2) - DVDActive Filthy, Rich & Catflap: 25th Anniversary Edition (UK - DVD R2) The Wilson Bros review the missing link between The Young Ones and Bottom Tweet Feature When The Young Ones invaded BBC2 back in the early 1980’s, the viewing public were thrown off-guard by the heady mixture of vulgarity, satire, music and graphic violence. People who “got” the show loved it dearly, but those who hated it were forced to grudgingly admit that that was - at the very least - innovative. It wouldn’t be overstating things to say that this was the start of a comedy revolution not only for the BBC, and the waves of these changes from the smug, middle-class sit-coms are still being felt today.

A crucial part of the The Young Ones‘[ freshness came from it being the product of three very diverse writers: Ben Elton, Rik Mayall and Lise Mayer (or four, if you count Alexi Sayle writing most of his own material). The way this multiple-way writing effort succeeded was in the way that interlocking nature of Lise Mayer’s writing took the edge off some of the more testosterone-driven moments, those which occasionally threatened to let the whole thing degenerate into an anarchic mess. But when the idea for a continuation of The Young Ones was mooted, it was going to proceed without the all-important participation of Lise Mayer, meaning that there was no feminine aspect to balance up the frenetic male-driven writing. But it wasn’t just that Meyer was missing, Elton seized the project and all but shut out Mayall from the writing, who took his name off the credits for the little of his work that remained. The result was a very different kettle of fish.

Taking its title from the surnames of the main characters, Filthy, Rich and Catflap chronicles the pathetic existence of life on the bottom rung of the showbiz ladder, encompassing those the egos on stage and the scumbags off it. Richie Rich (Rik Mayall) is a washed-up has-been (or never-was) who still thinks that he is a star – to the point that he employs a violent, drunken minder, Eddie Catflap (Ade Edmondson) to look after him from the heaving crowds he deludes himself will harass him. Most of the action takes place in their squalid flat, where the pair are at each other’s throats whilst Richie waits around for his agent, Ralph Filthy (Nigel Planer) to call with news of impending work – either by phone or coming around personally to scrounge fags and plunder his clients’ alcohol. The following line perfectly illustrates the charming qualities of Mr Filthy, as he talks to one of his “stars” on the phone: “Now look, Squeaky, I’ve told you before. Balloon-bending is no longer a saleable commodity. The public want sex.

Squeaky, two round balloons and one long one thin one does not constitute sex…” We remember Ben Elton once mentioning that he was very depressed whilst writing Filthy, Rich and Catflap – we even recall that he said he wrote some of it whilst on the lavatory, a claim that he went on to very publicly deny on The South Bank Show. The sense of rage and frustration levelled at the BBC and showbiz in general is very much in evidence, even going so far as to have Ritchie rescuing his copy of the complete works of Shakespeare from the toilet when up for one of the Bard’s finest, relieved that the play in question had not yet met with a messy fate. The Daily Mirror lead the charge as it railed against the crudity and (their words) juvenile nature of the humour, with the TV review column becoming exponentially bitchy each week, with one of the earlier barbs reading: “If they edited out all of the swearing, the violence and the lavatorial humour, it would be a perfect (if short) show for young children”.

The surreal elements that made The Young Ones so very different from anything else that was around at the time was replaced with vicious rants and satirical swipes at admittedly easy targets. A good example comes with Elton shocking the establishment by directly addressing kids watching to tell them that Santa Claus isn’t real. The shock-value of statement might have been more potent if Gremlins hadn’t have done it two years earlier, armed with much more spite and panache. Naturally, Thatcher still got the bashings she richly deserved, where a glowing tribute describing her as: “…A wonder-woman workaholic who needs no sleep and works a 36 hour day“ is countered with the retort of: “She needs 36 hours a day to screw things up the way she does!” Speaking of which, one of our favourites has got to be: “Honestly, just because I own a chain of discount brothels, every seems to think I am a dirty old man…my leisure establishments are totally allowable. I get the kids off youth training schemes.

The Iron Lady looks after small businessmen like me…” With all the showbiz satire which has followed in the wake of this particular show, it’s doubtful that any will even shine the shoes of Filthy, Rich and Catflap for pure venom, and all utilising and insiders knowledge of the BBC to really put the boot in. Some footage from an episode was used as documentary footage in the recent Inside Television Centre show on BBC4, such was the access granted to Elton and co when making it. If you remember the Young Ones’ “Sick” where a rant about The Good Life was followed by a lengthy spoof of everything it holds dear, then this gives you good idea of the entire run of the follow-up series. We were in possession of the video releases for a while (somewhere in our vast video archive, we even have an episode or two recorded during the original (and only) terrestrial broadcast. Casting a critical eye over the series, it is easy to see why the Beeb were less than keen on repeated the exploits of Richie, Eddie and Filthy Ralph, as Elton was obviously not a happy bunny during the writing process, and committed his feelings to paper.

This unflattering look up Auntie’s skirt would only be rivalled a few years later when Peter Jackson & Fran Walsh sat down and wrote Meet the Feebles to vent their spleen about being burned in “the biz”. The kind of no-holds-(or holes)-barred assault on showbiz seen in Filthy, Rich and Catflap is calculated and almost seems like Elton is the TV equivalent of Penn and Teller by gleefully giving away many secrets and taking away a vast chunks of showbiz magic in order to get some laughs. “’Allo, Nasty John’s cock and dog fights? I understand you are putting a bunch of myxomatosed rabbits up against a three-legged cat? A fiver on the moggy. No, wait: a fiver on each goolie.

Have you got any children fighting today…?” Let’s take a look at the episodes: EPISODE ONE: Richie accidentally murders the milkman and has to use all of his thespian know-how in order to impersonate the late dairy-deliverer – after deciding to give his milkman character a limp and a northern accent, he proceeds to nonchalantly enter the dairy, dragging one of his legs like it was caught in a bear-trap and uttering “Eeeh, bah gum, ecky thump…” EPISODE TWO: The Nolans! Probably the most consistently funny episode sees our hapless thesp roped into appearing on innuendo-laden show Ooer Sounds A Bit Rude, only to destroy the light-entertainment show by literalising the crudity it desperately cloaks. Angry and annoyed, he ventures into The Nolan Sisters’ dressing room and dresses in their clothes to get his kicks. Unfortunately, his cross-dressing is captured on film by the singing quintet and Richie is soon the victim blackmail, as they threaten to sell the pics to the papers.

Eddie makes a splash in the trendy art-scene, championed by none other than the great P’farty and N’bent. EPISODE THREE: Ritchie plans a dinner party for the golfing mafia (Tarby, Brucie, Lynchy), but how will the boys get the vital ingredients to host such a lavish banquet? The smell of shoplifting is in the air, and before the dinner party goes ahead, Ritchie has to fulfil a contractual obligation by appearing as a compare at peepshow between strippers. EPISODE FOUR: Ritchie’s father is dying, leaving him not only with one less direct relative, but with a brilliant idea to get him back in the public eye: he will be the face of Bloody Flora, the UK’s biggest flower company. Trouble is, Dad is getting better and the deal is going down the toilet. What can he do? Arrange to have his father killed, of course. When he screws up trying to hire a contract-killer, he decides to do the job himself… EPISODE FIVE: A boring game of Trivial Pursuit marks time before the break Richie has been waiting for: reading the papers on TV-AM!

But can the boys resist the temptation of the dreaded “Lager-Frenzy” as they kill time en route to Anne Diamond at the studio? EPISODE SIX: Banned from showbusiness, and with Filthy under sentence of death, Richie becomes a journo to maintain gainful employment. His plan is simple: libel everyone in the light entertainment industry so he will be the only one left with an untarnished reputation to front TV. Some of the soft targets satirised include then-household names in light entertainment, including John Inman, Molly Sugden and Rod Hull and Emu. Although they are not mentioned by name, the caricatures presented on the show are so thinly veiled that they almost transparent. Elton seems to take sadistic pleasure in ripping them apart and publicly deflating their mystique - a prime example is when the “John Inman” character sticks his head right in front of a TV camera and shrieks “I’m a homosexual, isn’t it hilarious?” - pricking the carefully crafted bubble that had been formed over more than a decade of Are You Being Served?

At the time, the list of guest stars might have seemed none-too-prestigious, but looking back, the mixture of up-and-coming & established stars is quite impressive - Stephen Fry, Hugh Laurie, David Baddiel, Mel Smith, Hale and Pace, Harry Enfield, Chris Barry, Linda Bellingham and Anne Diamond. The final episode features two British comedy legends - John Wells as an aged High Court judge and John Bird as Dingo Wukka, an unsubtle caricature of Rupert Murdoch, giving Elton the material for a well-honed rant about that way the unions were dismantled during the eighties - for all of the satiric dialogue in Bird’s scenes, the funniest line has to be when he earnestly (and lecherously) asks Richie and Eddie “how do you spell tits?” The caricature of Murdoch is so on the money that he probably shares the same convenient memory lapses when asked about wrongdoing at his newspapers.

Speaking of casting, the other main cast member of The Young Ones, Christopher Ryan, did not appear in the show; considering the furore which surrounded, he probably thought that he was better off out of it – but that same year, fate stepped in and Ryan had the misfortune to star in the unspeakably awful A Small Problem, which was never repeated, even on satellite TV and never released on video. “If you won’t take the rap, Filthy, I’ll tell the world about your so-called stage-school…” There is a term used in film and television – breaking the fourth wall. This comes from the fact that a set is usually constructed from three walls, with the camera standing in as the fourth, allowing the viewer to feel as though they were actually present in a room, watching the action. Breaking the fourth wall occurs when something is done to deliberately shatter the illusion of realism, usually when talking directly to the camera/audience. Matthew Broderick did this in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Michael Caine also did the same thing in Alfie.

With Filthy, Rich and Catflap, it was as though the pretence of the fourth wall had been scrapped entirely – characters talk directly to the camera, at times even directly to the audience, usually mugging shamefully as they do so. Though this had been done in The Young Ones, it could not compare to the frequency with it took place in Filthy, Rich and Catflap, to the point of even questioning the intelligence of the audience – when Richie and Eddie are playing Trivial Pursuits, it is debated whether the audience would appreciate jokes about the game, Eddie bluntly remarks that in order to play the game “you have to be able to read, which counts most of our lot out from the start” – such remarks did not exactly endear themselves to many viewers. “Now look, Immoral Timothy, I don’t deal in drugs. Well that’s why I sold you two ounces of scouring-powder. Well, look on the bright side: you’ll have the cleanest nose in Clapham…” The second episode shows Filthy, Rich and Catflap at its best, and we’d go so far as to call it perfection.

It is thirty minutes of unadulterated laughs, combining potshots at all of Ben Elton’s favourite targets, as Richie is blackmailed with cross-dressing photographs by the Nolans, all after a disastrous appearance on a gameshow which mercilessly destroys Blankey Blank. Everything in this one works perfectly, to the point where if you played it to someone today, they would assume that it was part of a series deemed a comedy classic, and helps to counter the first episode, which plays like a pilot and contains all the pitfalls of such an exploratory venture. The first few scenes of the initial episode are a non-stop barrage of put-downs and one-liners, as though Ben Elton had a load of them written for something else and chose to deploy them all to get them out of the way, possibly figuring that such an exhaustive volley would be enough to ensnare the Young Ones audience he often underestimated. In any case, the first episode at least contains an almost young-looking Arthur Smith, reminding us all just how good he was as a deadpan comedy actor rather than the miserable malcontent he has been for almost a couple of decades.

Anyway, we defy anyone not to see the Nolans one and not declare it a work of genius - it all ends with the girls singing “I’m In the Mood For Dancing”, for the love of God! One cannot review the series without praising the design of the main set - the living room of Richie’s flat just screams mid-eighties, right down to the heavy use of red plastic for fixtures and fittings. There are numerous theatrical props, such as stage signs above doors and various posters for plays that have been crudely altered to make Richie seem like a high-profile celebrity, instead of the talentless has-been he actually is. There are several framed pictures of his favourite celebs, such as Jimmy Tarbuck, but the most amusing one has to be a picture of Bernard Manning with Richie’s head frantically looming behind the sizeable Manning in a desperate attempt to appear in the same photo as an established celebrity.

Elton’s desire to shatter televisual illusions like a sledgehammer-wielding manic-depressive in a hall of mirrors is brought to it’s logical conclusion during the rolling of the final episode’s end credits - this sees Eddie literally smashing the living room set as the Richie sits transfixed at the TV and Filthy Ralph books a flight to Rio. The final shot sees the screen of Richies’ television being smashed - a symbolic end to a series written for the purpose of destroying much of the magic of television. You could wax all pretentious and draw to attention to the fact that The Young Ones’ first episode was entitled Demolition, which saw the cast destroying the set of their house, and that having Filthy, Rich and Catflap bookend it by finishing with the destruction its own house set was closing the book on Elton’s involvement with anything related to his previous show.

Maybe that’s navel-gazing a bit too much… Filthy, Rich and Catflap was originally dumped onto DVD with all of the prestige and presentation of a fry up at a greasy spoon café, seeming rather obvious that the BBC washed their hands of the show completely and allowed Playback, a subsidiary of Universal (we shouldn’t slag them off, we’ve worked for them!) to finally release it on a single shiny disc. Now the rights have passed to Acorn MediaUK and they have affixed a 25th anniversary edition moniker to it. With this in mind, we’ll turn our attention to the big question: OK, so how do they look? Video Well, considering that they were filmed 18 years ago, this is probably as good as they will look, short of letting the Doctor Who Restoration Team get their hands on them. Most of it was shot on videotape and has a tendency to look better than most filmed stuff for BBC TV shows during the seventies and eighties. The image is solid and there is little in the way of drop-outs on the videotaped sections - there is a little chroma noise over the image, but this was probably down to the original recording.

When the US released a box set of The Young Ones (loathsomely subtitled Every Stoopid Episode), the bonus disc in the set contained the first episode of Filthy, Rich and Catflap - we are pleased to report that image quality of the UK set cleans the floor with this episode: the picture is considerably sharper and brighter & the colours are significantly stronger. That the show looks so good is probably because they have only been screened once and (badly) duped for video and a single UK Gold airing. Audio The mono audio is fine; the aforementioned rendition of The Nolans’ I’m In The Mood For Dancing is full-bodied enough to have you tapping your toe in spite your best instincts to maintain the illusion of coolness. There are no gremlins to be found here, and all levels are faithfully kept to how it originally went out.

As per the original release, on the back of the box should have been the dreaded legend “for contractual reasons, certain edits have been made.” Once again, several lines of dialogue containing lyrics to songs have been removed because of copyright problems, these instances being where they either couldn’t get permission to use on DVD or were not prepared to pay the amount that the owners of the publishing rights were asking. One of the most obvious omissions comes when Ritchie decides to try his luck at pick-pocketing, breaking into a certain song from Oliver! Extras After the best part of two decades, this could have been the perfect opportunity for the creative forces behind Filthy, Rich and Catflap to have their say about the intention of the show - although coaxing the shy and reserved Ben Elton to talk about something at length would have been a little hard to do. It’s a damn shame to say they there really is very little to justify the pop and ceremony of calling it a “25th Anniversary Edition”, coming with only a few basic, text-based extras. We’re sure that certain parts of interviews could have been licensed for inclusion, but it wasn’t to be.

Let’s focus on what we do get: Cast Profiles: The main three cast-members have completely up-to-date listings of all their screen work, and there were a few we’d completely forgotten about, and sure that they had hoped would remain in the shadows themselves. Picture Gallery Given the lack of enthusiasm or expectation which the show was met with, it is unsurprising that there were very few photographs taken during the production, and that half of these were utilised for the packaging drives home the point. All eight are here for your delectation, and it’s nice to see them all together in the one place. The packaging is better than the Playback edition, and it’s certainly not as dire as the BBC VHS releases, where they eventually gave the three main cast cartoon-like bodies seen on the kiddies’ TV favourite Bod - when the series was quietly released on video in the nineties, about the best that the copywriters could muster for a slogan to sell the show was “Arrgh! The Young Ones have grown up!

It’s horrible!” Sure, it would have been nice for them to include a booklet chronicling the history of the show, but sadly there is nothing, but given the public humiliation the show generated for Auntie Beeb, it is amazing that they have even seen the light of day again, let alone with such frills. Overall If Rik Mayall had been allowed to contribute more material to the script, and if the show had employed a director who was able to reign in the more over-the-top mugging of Mayall and Edmondson, then Filthy, Rich and Catflap may have been eligible for the kind of reverence that The Young Ones attained - in recent years, even Bottom has become regarded as a classic sitcom - but in the end, Filthy, Rich and Catflap was a missed opportunity, whilst an entertaining and interesting one, still something of a disappointment.

There are still a lot o’ laughs to be found, and the accurate destruction of the Light Entertainment industry is utterly breathtaking, probably even more so when viewed today, begging the question - “How the hell did they let them get away with that?“ There is enough bile and spite directed towards both middle and working-class entertainment to remind the those brought up on Frankie Boyle and Russell Howard that the combination of bile and shouting existed long before they ever took to a stage. For those of you that thought Bottom was the heir apparent to The Young Ones, the BBC eventually released the imprisoned prince from his tower to take his rightful place in the palace of British comedy, and although this 25th Anniversary Edition comes with damned few extras, it is best looked upon as a way of owning a tremendously entertaining romp without having to fork out a fortune for it on Ebay. Filthy, Rich and Catflap is the black sheep of BBC comedy, but its butchering by the critics only proved that it can make a tasty kebab that can really hit the spot. We heartily recommend picking this one up without delay!

It is worth pointing out that after the last episode aired on BBC2 back in early 1987, a title card appeared on screen and a voiceover announced that “And there’ll be another series of Filthy, Rich & Catflap in the autumn”. It’s twenty-five years later, and it is pretty safe to assume that there isn’t going to be another one… Links: Filthy, Rich & Catflap | The Bottom Wiki | Fandom powered by Wikia Filthy, Rich & Catflap Share Ad blocker interference detected! Wikia is a free-to-use site that makes money from advertising. We have a modified experience for viewers using ad blockers Wikia is not accessible if you’ve made further modifications. Remove the custom ad blocker rule(s) and the page will load as expected. Overview Series title card. The following description is taken from the back of the DVD release of Filthy, Rich & Catflap, a British sitcom starring Rik Mayall , Adrian Edmondson and Nigel Planer . Conceived by Rik Mayall and Ben Elton as a natural successor to The Young Ones, Filthy, Rich & Catflap is a difficult series to describe.

The words sublime and ridiculous do spring to mind, but the word that probably sums it up best is: funny. Filthy, Rich & Catflap is a tale of Richie Rich, a talentless and unheard of television personality along with Ralph Filthy, his useless, sponging agent and Eddie Catflap, his alcoholic minder, who are both involved in helping (hindering) Richie's quest for TV fame and glory. Unfortunately, Filthy never gets him any work, and his minder Eddie is more than willing to help administer extreme physical violence should any be visited upon his boss. So, probably not the most stable basis from which to launch a career in television. Filthy, Rich & Catflap's legacy lasted for years however, in the form of the brilliantly funny, if just a little more violent, Bottom. Filthy, Rich & Catflap bridges the gap between The Young Ones and Bottom . Only one series of six episodes was made in 1986, and broadcast in 1987. Ben Elton is credited with writing all six episodes, with Rik Mayall providing additional material.

The characters played by Rik and Ade are similar to their Bottom counterparts, but unique enough to stand apart from the Richie and Eddie we have become accustomed to. Following the success of Bottom, Filthy, Rich & Catflap fell somewhat into obscurity, experiencing a resurgence in popularity in 2004 with the release of the show on DVD. Cast & Characters

Question: Who played Eddie Didgeridoo Catflap in the TV sitcom Filthy, Rich and Catflap?
Answer: Adrian Edmondson